


Keep Your Head Up (And Make it to Me)

by wirewrappedlily



Series: Afire Love [1]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Ghost In The Machine, M/M, Presumed Death, Slow Build, but i know people get picky about that kind of thing, characters and relationships will be updated as we go, originally i was going to make this one massive oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-04
Updated: 2014-07-07
Packaged: 2018-02-07 09:30:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1893999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wirewrappedlily/pseuds/wirewrappedlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He'd had other Quartermasters; other losses. It didn't seem to soften the blow of the boffin's death. Q had died, after all, because James hadn't been able to reach him in time: because stupid fucking Mallory had made the call that James <i>couldn't</i> reach him, and that the only way to protect their greatest security asset would be to destroy the man the mind belonged to. </p><p>Stupid fucking Mallory had gotten the message to Q that they couldn't save him, and Q had blown himself and his captors up. Bond wanted blood. Preferably Mallory's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Just a Spark

The first time James walked into Q Branch after Q had been declared officially dead, he almost didn't notice that the locks on Q's doors clicked open before he could pick them. He was blind-drunk, and he wanted to tear his skin off for how badly he'd lost. 

He'd had other Quartermasters; other losses. It didn't seem to soften the blow of the boffin's death. Q had died, after all, because James hadn't been able to reach him in time: because stupid fucking Mallory had made the call that James _couldn't_ reach him, and that the only way to protect their greatest security asset would be to destroy the man the mind belonged to. 

Stupid fucking Mallory had gotten the message to Q that they couldn't save him, and Q had blown himself and his captors up. Bond wanted blood. Preferably Mallory's. 

With a soft beep, the servers turned on, and James assumed it was a response to there being signs of life in the office. 

_"Double-oh Seven, if you're hearing this, you've broken into my office and your blood-alcohol content falls rather on the side of being more alcohol than blood,"_ James started violently, head snapping to the monitor as Q's voice filtered in perfect clarity through the speakers, _"there are a limited number of reasons you could have done this. In any of these eventualities, I must ask that you take the directions I am about to give you and for once in our bloody acquaintance do as you're told."_

James listened as the posh, almost-bored voice of his now-dead Quartermaster directed him to what he knew to be a near-historical part of industrial London. 

Even if he'd wanted to, James couldn't stop himself from doing as the dead man asked: headed for the address he'd been given and finding himself a few minutes later allowed into the refurbished shop space that he instinctively knew belonged to Q. 

The security system switched itself off over his shoulder as he started to wander into the work space: drifts of old technology that Q had no doubt twisted into being the pieces of sculpture that dotted the floor; a workbench with a personal tablet, a cup of long-forgotten tea, and an array of tools that made James wonder at what all Q did splayed over the scorched, gouged, and worn surface. 

There was another small tone, and James kept himself from startling this time, _"James...Mr. Bond...if you've activated this program, I'm dead, and have been for at least two weeks. This program...was set up for you, and you alone. It's my goodbye note, in a way. There are things that I need from you...I hate to ask, but you are the best for the job, as loathe as I am to admit that. The things I would ask you to do for me are my unfinished business. I'd wished to finish it all before this protocol was ever necessary; but as the saying goes, god laughs at our plans. If you would, I would like to ask that you return sober for this, James. It's a lot to ask, I realize. But we both know that my death can't have hurt you much."_

" _Don't_." James choked, voice rough and painful, "Do you--...did you really think me so callous, Q?" 

_"You can talk to the program, it will answer as best as it can. If you need to stop, or to glean whatever answers I can offer as to what I've asked you to do, I find myself without responsibility to keep the secrets I've been charged with keeping from those I work with."_

"Stop." James ordered, hating the pain in his throat. He turned and walked out of the door, fully intending on never returning. 

He couldn't hear the ghost in the wires sigh once he was gone, and nor could he know that the servers hummed to life brilliantly, keeping track of where he went. 

It was three days before he was bursting back into the quiet building, sober but angrier than he could put to words. 

_"Double-oh Seven,"_ the posh voice greeted him as if he'd just strode into Q Branch with a papercut and a bone to pick with Q, _"would you like to talk about what's gotten you in a right shirty mood, or shall we just move on?"_

"What would the bloody point be of talking to you about it, Q? Now you really are just an automaton." 

_"Quite,"_ the forced amusement made James wonder, for just a moment, how Q had managed to imitate himself so flawlessly in the lines of code. _"I do need your head on your shoulders, though, Bond. Please do try not to be any more reckless than you already are."_

"What do you need me to do, Q?" 

_"Upstairs in the master bedroom, in a floorsafe, there are files that pertain to what I'm asking of you, James. I shall be able to override the lock, you'll be able to hear the click, I'm sure."_

"What, no comment about losing my hearing my old age?" 

_"My gran had exceptional hearing, even at ninety-four; if you lost your hearing, Bond, it would be for gunplay and explosions, not because you're old enough to require help with the groceries."_

James smiled, because it was only a camera system that would pick it up: it wasn't as if he had any reputation to tarnish with the dead man's electronics. "Unless you don't care about my wandering through your personal effects, a guide would be helpful." 

_"I don't particularly care, no."_ Q laughed, and Bond's chest felt unnecessarily tight for a moment. _"I know you do get lost without me, Bond, but I have faith in your abilities this once."_

James heard something in the voice of the program, and he wondered when Q had done this; what it had been like, sitting at a server writing code to give James a last mission, off the books of MI6, but a mission nonetheless. "What was it like, making a program like this?" 

Q sighed, _"It seemed a little silly, thinking it would be you; that you'd outlive me."_ James heard the ribbing for what it was, and shook his head, looking carefully for the cameras, and smiling when he found one, giving a little wave. Q's laugh was small, and James was left to wonder how the man could program something like that into a motherboard. _"I suppose I died walking across the street to grab another box of Earl Grey."_

"You died trapped in a torture situation, Mallory making the call that I couldn't bloody get to you in time. You blew up because I failed." 

_"At least that has more dignity to it, I suppose."_

"For you, perhaps." 

_"James, it would not matter if Mallory made the call or not; I had every faith in you. If_ I'd _decided to that you couldn't reach me, it meant that you really couldn't, and it would have killed whoever was sent to try."_

James couldn't help the sad, worn smile that graced his features. Q was showing a part of himself that James had had an instinct on, but hadn't gotten to confirm: he was just as stubborn and unable to tame as Q was, and what Q thought best would be what Q did. It'd peeked through when Q had uttered the phrase "so much for my promising career in espionage", but this was the confirmation James had always wondered at. 

_"What I'm getting at is that it's not your fault."_

James shook his head, "So why would you assume you'd died of a car collision if I broke into your office and was directed here?" 

_"Oh, so you triggered that, did you? It's not something I could bridge: MI6's secure servers, and all that. I had a feeling you would have figured out where I lived, and come here...I don't know why..."_ The admission was tense, and James shook it off. 

"So what do you have me doing? Getting rid of your stash of porn?" 

_"Like I'd instruct you to go anywhere near my laptop."_ Q scoffed, _"I was...working on something, and though I'm not sure how far I've gotten, if I hadn't deactivated this program, I know I can't've finished._ Not _an exploding pen, James, and yes I can hear your disappointment. And as a sidenote, why the bloody hell would I instruct_ you _to help me finish that? It'd be much better left in the hands of someone who wouldn't end up blowing up my entire flat to high hell."_

"Such faith in me, Quartermaster." James laughed. "If you're using paper files, am I to assume that this needs more safety than even you can provide?" 

_"Something like that. These files are files so that someone like me couldn't get to them."_

"Just out of curiosity, how did you know it was me? How do you know I'm not someone coming for the information?" 

_"Because biometric scans, voice recognition software, and the tracking device in your left insole don't lie."_

"The left insole...of my shoe?" 

_"No."_

James sighed, glancing down at his foot speculatively. 

_"MI6 doesn't have the codes. I do like to give you Double-ohs whatever privacy can be spared, Bond. So long as I know you're alive and out of danger, I'm contented."_

James gave pause, "Thank you, Q." He whispered. 

_"You're welcome, James."_ Q replied, his own voice having gone soft as well. 

"So does this count as Artificial Intelligence, because you were a real man..." 

_"That is a debate for the ethics board at MIT."_ Q dismissed the conversation there, and James smiled, finally peeking through the door to the correct room. _"I know what my recommendations were, Bond, but...who is your handler?"_

"Not you, more's the pity." James replied softly. "You were useful, Q." 

_"I'm sure that's what I would have said of you, James, in another year or two."_

James twisted, finding the camera in the hall and flipping it off. 

Q snorted a laugh, and James grinned, looking around the bedroom. 

Q had sectioned the building over the work floor, the loft that held his apartment all hand-scraped hardwood and homey atmosphere, as if Q had found a way to make his living space feel like one of his cardigans. But the bedroom was where it felt most surreal. Q had more books than he had space for; his bed rumpled as if he'd only just left it that morning, and his closet left open, a pair of Converse runners half-tripped over. 

"Where is the safe?" 

_"Under the window."_

"There are--" James was cut off as the windows' privacy glass went from opaque to clear, the entire eastern wall windows to the Thames, the diffuse light casting the room into more detail than the soft, warm in-wall lighting had offered. 

Across from the bed, a mural covered an entire wall, unlike any James had seen before; and the bookshelves lining either side of the bed stood proud and cramped--taller than James had originally estimated, more books piled on the bedside table and over the dresser top. 

"Did you have a family, Q?" 

_"Orphans are the easiest recruits, Bond."_ Q sighed, _"My books will go to...well, probably a second-hand shop, or a library. The tech will be seized, of course. And the art...Well, I doubt anyone else would appreciate it as much as I did. It's all rather personal, after all."_

"Wait...you painted that?" James pointed to the mural, but there wasn't a camera in the room. 

_"Yes, I painted that. And the sculpture downstairs was my doing as well, though I think you figured that out."_

"It's impressive." James murmured, turning his attention to the mural, getting closer and picking out the subtlest hints of more vibrant colours. 

_"It's the least appalling of its brothers. Now, if I could direct you back to the safe."_ There was a rather loud click, and Bond zeroed in on it immediately, as Q said he would. 

James knelt, fingers grazing along the lifted board, catching and lifting it away with only a little struggle, the soft pop and hiss of something completely sealed being opened met his ears, and James mused over the image of Q designing something totally Double-oh proof. On top, there was a worn t-shirt that wrapped up a first edition of Keats, and a uniquely beautiful locket. These were not the things that Q had meant for him to find, and they tightened the feeling in his chest and throat, James's muscles locking down against reacting to the youth and care that had been lost in losing Q. 

Next, he lifted out a thin manila folder, replacing the shirt and its contents back into the safe and replacing the floorboard, getting up from his kneeling position, "Q, re-lock the safe." 

_"James?"_

"There was something else in there that was precious to you. Just...do it." 

_"I'm sorry, James,"_ he said after a moment, voice comforting, _"I didn't mean to make things--"_

"You needed help with whatever this is." James had gotten himself back to where the cameras could see him, and he showed the folder to its range of sight, opening it up and taking up a page at a time, knowing that the program would be able to process the pages faster than he could read them. 

_"I hadn't gotten much farther..."_ Q murmured, and James looked at the camera as the faint hint of regret filtered through his voice. 

"Walk me through it?" 

_"That's where this program gets fun. I've encrypted the information I've uploaded so that it can't be accessed without proper keywords. Those keywords have been written on the pages, and my thoughts on whatever information's there will be accessible for thirty minutes before you have to go through the process again."_

"You've encrypted your ideas on what's on this file with arbitrary keywords--and it's just your thoughts, not the information," James surmised, laughing to himself and shaking his head, "really, Q, how did I outlive you?" 

_"Buggered if I know."_


	2. The Right Measure

James was inexplicably comfortable wherever he was waking, sunlight spilling over his face and a warmth cocooned around him that he had the urge to never, ever leave. 

"Q?" He called, sitting up in the unfamiliar flat and half-stretching, wondering at the painlessness in his usually-aching joints. He expected the program to come whirring to life, but the flat remained quiet as dawn broke over London. 

Yawning, James got up and stretched more, looking over the room he'd fallen into before falling asleep. It was the room one door down from Q's, a guest room James wondered at the feel of. If Q had friends who stayed the night, since family wasn't an option. He walked to a dresser, and found a hairbrush with black hair in the bristles, and one of Moneypenny's favourite nail lacquers. James smiled to himself, shaking his head as he trailed out of the room and back towards the sitting room, then into the kitchen. 

James wasn't surprised to find that Q didn't have much by way of groceries, though he was pleasantly shocked to find a French press in working order and a full bag of gourmet coffee grounds just waiting for him, an 'E' scrabble mug in the cupboard with hand-pottered pieces that gave James pause over the scope of Q's tastes. 

Retrieving his mobile from the inner pocket of his coat--thrown carelessly over an armchair when he'd settled in for the night with Q's program filling in anything he needed to know comfortingly in his ear. 

He'd missed three calls from the new Q, and ten from Mallory. From Eve, though, there was only a text. **Come back when you can.**

Jaw working, James considered for a moment, casting his gaze around the apartment almost wistfully. 

The night before had been good like no night since Q's disappearance had been. Having that voice in his ear had made him feel like any other was second-rate, and if the last sorry excuse for a mission had been any indication, it was more than a feeling. He'd been sent to protect an asset, and the asset had gotten herself killed trying to kill him. It was a wash, from start to finish, and he'd been left with M and the new Q in his ear, reaming him for having lost her when she was trying to kill him and defect. 

He took his time drinking the two cups that the press made, and then he returned to the files, the question of why the program wasn't booting up filed away and forgotten, because he was gazing down at something that had the potential for carnage and destruction unlike any that Bond had wrought before. Q had found things, at first curious about why he'd been kept in the position of Q, despite his genius--then because there was something...as Q had put to words the night before; off about Mallory. About the missions he sent certain agents on; about the calls he made. 

Bond thought back to three weeks before, when he'd been yelling himself hoarse to a deadened earwig that he could save Q, dammit, just give him time! 

Q had said that it wasn't James's fault, his death. But if Mallory had gotten the man to kill himself for anything less than the protection of Queen and Country, James would tear his spine out through his throat and then force-feed it back to him. 

Bond looked around the flat, reconciling what he saw to what little he knew of the Quartermaster. He caught sight of a discarded book lying propped open to save the page, and he picked it up curiously, letting out a disbelieving scoff that Q was apparently in the midst of reading what looked to be a horrible, tacky spy novel. "You're dead and you still manage to surprise me..." James sighed, putting the book back down as if he didn't want Q to find it'd been disturbed, distracted from registering the absurdity of that by his ringing phone and the clipped tones of Moneypenny calling him in officially now to debrief. 

James prepared himself, a part of him mentally rubbing its hands together, eager to face Mallory and put his own instincts to the matter. He resolved to come back that night with as much information as he could wrangle, wishing that the Q program had started up. Standing, James barely managed to not shoot as something under the settee whirred. Ducking slightly, James came face to faceplate with a robotic vacuum cleaner, inching its way forward like it was scared of what James might do with it. 

It was more than halfway out before it shot across the floor, bumping against James's ankles like an excited pet. 

'Winsome Idiot' was scrawled in black Sharpie over the body of the suped-up cleaning machine, and James was almost beyond questioning it. 

"Ballllloooooonnnn." It purred at him, which sent James halfway to the ceiling in shock, looking incredulously down at the tiny, whirring puck. 

"You can talk." 

"Balloon!" 

"Is that the only thing you can say?" 

"Give me balloon!" 

James looked around the flat, confused about what on earth the thing could want with a balloon, then shook his head, "I don't have time for this, I'll have to deal with you later." 

The thing made a sad, soft beeping noise, as if it'd been let down, and James caught himself before could get tied up in figuring out the psychology of the damn vacuum. 

Escaping out into the fog-heavy London air, James turned to look back at the flat and laughed to himself, shaking his head at the things his Quartermaster could do. If he was right, that was at least a semi-sentient Rhoomba, and James had no bloody idea how to even begin to process that information.

Hours later, standing at a pay counter for a convience store with a box of balloons and a serious look of consternation riding his features, Bond only barely resisted the urge to jump as Moneypenny sidled up behind him, peeking over his shoulder and murmuring, "So, you've met Win." 

"Win?" 

"Short for Winsome Idiot. It's his name." She was laughing at him, he knew, but he couldn't bring himself to care. "Probably a good idea to bring the balloons: Q ties one to him whenever someone new comes to the apartment. Apparently, he'd gotten the idea in his head that if Win snuck up on someone like you or I, there wouldn't be any bullet-resistant plating in the world that would keep the dear imbecile safe." 

"Q made him bullet-resistant?" 

"And gave him flight capabilities, how else do you think he can reach the top of those ruddy bookshelves?" 

James honestly hadn't wanted to even consider that. "What d'you think the likelihood would have been of Q's world domination?" 

"Given the access to the equipment at Q-Branch and the fact that the man once programed nanobots to swirl themselves into perfect recreations of the constellations when I last felt the urge to escape, he still could." 

"How did you know?" 

"There's a secondary alert system on his office; I was informed when the program sensed your blood-alcohol levels trying to gain entry, and gave the go-ahead for it to open for you." 

"You and he were better friends than I'd imagined." 

"Given time, I think you would have found yourself just as taken with him." 

James looked at her speculatively, the corners of his mouth pulled in something of a frown, "Were you in love with him?" 

"No...though I did love him. I wasn't his type, and, really, he wasn't mine. He was gay, did you know that? Did the most amazing sketches, and he'd once covered a man in watercolours, and glow-paint." 

"He was artistic..." James purred, speculation seeping into his voice as he finally managed to get up to paying. "You wouldn't happen to be willing to show me where he'd hidden that particular stash, would you?" 

Eve had a mishchevious, playful look in her eye, and James grinned. "I've been tasked with getting rid of his porn before someone comes to collect all tech at his apartment." 

James's smile grew, feral. "Well, you'll have better luck tying that thing with a balloon than I will." 

Moneypenny had to disengage the alarm system this time, and James took note, something feeling off about that as she bustled into the workshop, touching the sculpture lovingly, "Have you been staying in my room or his?" 

"You stay over enough to lay claim to a room?" 

"I'm the only other person who knows he lives here, James." Eve told him, "So, yes, I have lay claim to a room. Win, darling!" She called, practically skipping up the last few stairs. The robot let out a high squeal and came rocketing towards her, saying her name like she was a goddess on earth. "Hello, my little prince. Did you miss me?" 

"Where is father?" The thing's voice suddenly sounded like a schoolboy's, and it made James take a start. 

"Q...Q can't come home, dear. Now, I have a whole pack of balloons for you, and if you're good I'll let you play with one after we get one secured, okay?" 

It swiveled back and forth once, and then whizzed off in the direction of an office James had glimpsed the night before, its tiny plastic wheels tearing hell for leather. 

Sighing, Eve trailed after it, and Bond followed her, curious to see what she was doing, just in case he'd have to do it in future. 

"Will they take him?" 

"If I don't steal him first, yes." Eve replied tightly, "though my flat's nothing like this place, he'll be bored to hell." 

"What about mine?" James asked without any form of forethought. It was a child of Q's, this puck, and if Eve had been so endeared by it, and Q had so obviously loved it, then he'd find a way to keep it from being binned from MI6. "I'm rarely home, he'll have plenty to clean." 

"I would say yes in a heartbeat, but he needs interaction. Q built him to be a pet as well as a robotic vacuum. He's limited, and can only speak in movie quotes, but he needs someone to take care of." 

"MI6 doesn't know about this place?" 

"No." 

"Then I'll take it." James went to the next logical conclusion, and Eve stopped, turning to look at him. 

"This is in a building no woman in her right mind would willingly follow even you into, and I've seen your apartments, Bond: you're into dark wood and chrome, not sunlight and gauzy curtains." 

"Q made this place...he made Win, he...he doesn't deserve to have it forgotten and thrown away. I will stay here with Win, and I know I can count on you to visit him if I have to go on mission--" 

"You aren't responsible for his death, 007." She cut him off, "You don't have to throw away any part of your life; he wouldn't have wanted that." 

"In his office, the program said that one way or another, he knew the reasons I'd go there. What was the other way?" 

Eve stopped short, her hands slowing over the small mechanism that James concluded would be helium. She looked up at him, her eyes large and pained, "He wanted very badly the chance to be a friend to you." 

"He wanted to be more than a friend." James read between the lines, "He deserved better." 

Eve gave something dangerously close to a teary laugh, "You should be glad he'll never hear you say that. You have no idea. That boy accepted every flaw I could think of to throw at him, and he didn't falter once. Not talking you through certain death or being forced to listen to you fucking through the active comm link."

James felt that like a blow, slightly sick now. He'd left it up to test Q's sensibilities. He hadn't expected that Q would have cause to be jealous or hurt.

"He'd kill me for having told you, but you need to understand that you, of all people, Q wouldn't risk even to save himself." 

"Please, stop." James grit out, his hands fists. He thought of every single moment he'd shared with the Quartermaster, every outrageous bit of flirting he tossed over the comms to the man all the way back in London, sipping Earl Grey from a Scrabble mug and adjusting his glasses over a blush. It was all there for him to see in the harsh light of hindsight. Q patching him up when he wouldn't' go to Medical after returning his equipment; the small, suspicious smile he'd received after bringing Q a cuppa--dammit, he should have _known_! He should have seen the signs and done whatever it took to make Q happy in whatever time they had. 

That last gave him pause. Did he harbour--

Again, bringing Q tea; returning his equipment, how ever many pieces it was in; every joke they shared flashed through Bond's mind, and he concluded that, yes, he had carried a torch for Q. Still, if the fact that he was willing to volunteer for a robotic hockey puck, carried that torch, even though it had burned close enough to scald.

Eve had taken a step back, regarding him through narrowed eyes, "I wish I'd known before..."she let it go unsaid, as neither of them needed the stab of pain it'd cause, "then I might've driven you two into each other until it stuck." 

"I could have made him happy." James murmured through lips numbed with the crush of regret. 

"You made him happy anyway."


	3. Setting Fire to the Sky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the comments, my freaky darlings; it's what I live for. 
> 
> I know I've managed a chapter-a-day pace thus far, but that is totally a fluke of the muse. I'll ride this creative burst until it peters out, and please don't hate me when I can't write a word for a week.

This time, it was tears that had driven him to sleep. Though, thankfully; not his own. 

Eve's head rested on his shoulder, her hand still clutching his handkerchief as she slept fitfully, her face scrubbed clean after the second bout of tears had come and gone, leaving them in a pile of photographs, candid photos, of Q's friends and colleagues, the people he considered his family. Tanner talking animatedly with Moneypenny over her desk; R and Q in front of an explosion, looking as if they'd posed for a horrid American movie poster apart from their lab coats and protective eyewear. 

There was one of Moneypenny surprising Q with a birthday cupcake, and James was surprised to find he was in that one, a dot on one of the screens labeled '007'. 

"If he'd told me--" James had started. 

Eve laughed at him, "You, what? Wouldn't have blown up half the British consulate and driven a motorcycle off of a half-completed overpass?" 

James considered, remembering which mission, exactly, that had been. Frowning, James had been able to supress the smile that Eve herself had once told him was just like that of a naughty boy caught by someone he knew wouldn't punish him. The laughter that had bubbled from her had quickly turned to a startled kind of tears, the loss fresh for them both. James hadn't gotten a chance to reach out for her, she'd turned and gotten up on shaky legs, walking out of the office for a long while, returning with a tea for each of them, just the way Q had liked, with the addition of a shot of brandy. They'd toasted him, and Eve had sat back, the stories that Q had shared with her unfolding between them. The next bout of hysterics took Bond along with it, until the two of them had fallen against each other, holding each other up over a picture of a toothless seven-year-old with hair that seemed to be damn near ginger. 

"Did he dye it?" James had asked incredulously. 

"It darkened as he got older." 

Then there had been the questions that Bond had, that no one else could possibly answer. "Was he really afraid of flying?" 

"No," Eve had managed, voice strained and weak, "he said that to give me a push towards regaining my confidence. I'd shattered. And he knew it." 

The second round of tears, Eve let him wrap his arms around her, tucking her head against his neck and drowning in the misery, wishing that crying would give him the release it seemed to give everyone else. 

They'd forgotten the tea and just gone with the brandy after that, Eve's laughter desperate to cling to the happiness that being Q's friend had brought her, and James's teasing so far from his usual flirt that it felt like he wasn't betraying Q to be half-drunk on the horrible, shag carpet in his office, trying to reconcile the Quartermaster of MI6 with the uni student who'd partied a Halloween as Wonder Woman. 

In the harsh light of morning, James turned his head as the whirring of Win's wheels over the floor signaled that the bot was recharged and wreaking havoc. Watching the orange balloon Moneypenny had tied around the puck go dashing across the doorway brought a disbelieving smile to Bond's lips. 

Eve had passed out in his arms, and he'd carried her to bed, too tired to object when she ordered him to just bloody well get in the bed with her. Neither of them were willing to broach the subject of Q's bed, or whether either of them might've ever been welcome in it. 

Eve groans, and the balloon barely makes it around the corner in one piece before Win is already at the foot of the bed, beeping excitedly. 

"Oh, darling." She greeted, sighing as she pushed a lock of hair back and licked her lips. 

"He has much knowledge, we shall form a cult around him, build a statue many stories high--" 

"Okay, princess, I'm up, what do you want me to see?" 

James shadowed her, the pair of them padding through the flat until Win let out a soft puff, then started to actually hover. "I'd thought you were lying." 

Eve raised a brow at him, "It's Q, of course he'd give it the ability to fly." 

James's brows rose with the rush of thoughts of what other flying things Q might've whipped up for him if James had just had the information he'd needed. 

"That's his laptop, dear; and it does have some things on it, but nothing that would merit a cult." Eve informed the chirruping puck. 

"The secret to the universe!" 

"Forty-two?" James answered before he even knew what he was doing, and Eve shot him a look like she couldn't believe that he'd know a jewel like _Hitchiker's Guide_. 

Shaking her head, Eve grabbed his arm, towing them into the kitchen. She let him go by the bar, which he took immediate advantage of by sliding into one of the surprisingly comfortable though unnecessarily tall chairs. She slumped towards the French press like it was the only thing that could keep her alive, and Bond, yawning, had to agree. 

"I'm not going into work today." Bond told her, "In point of fact, I'm not sure I want to go back to work at all." 

"What happened yesterday?" 

"M would rather I have let her kill me and defect than simply defect. He's punishing me." 

Eve looked decidedly grim, "I doubt that. He was the one to make the bloody call." 

James remained silent, thinking of the file safely tucked away in the living room. He'd been able to confirm his own suspicions, and more, in the meeting the day before. The suspicion that Q had died for anything less than national security prickled at James's mind, made him yearn for the free reign required to interrogate M into a bloody and bruised lump. 

"You don't trust M, do you?" Eve asked. James looked at her, and she nodded, not needing the words, "Neither do I." 

"What if he made the call--" 

"Don't start there, James. If you're going to burn down the head of MI6, don't start with what makes you _feel_. Start with something we can build towards it. Trying to prove that he got Q to cause that explosion unnecessarily will only consume you in the anger. You need a level bloody head, though lord knows that'll be a miracle in and of itself." 

James snorted, taking a long drink of coffee. He realized that it'd been days since his last cigarette, but the urge for one wasn't there, just the slight surprise. 

Eve turned and raised herself up on tiptoes, kissing his cheek, "I do have to go to work. Would you like me to come back tonight?" 

"No," James assured, voice gentle, "you need a night to yourself. Try to rehydrate." 

Eve snorted, shaking her head, but she did pick up her bag and discarded shoes, padding all the way down the stairs before putting them back on. James realized that walking through the workshop barefoot would be asking for trouble, and he sighed to himself, easily imagining that it was a rule Q enforced, but never followed. 

James turned to Win, the image of the robot with a balloon tied to it giving him a small smile. "I may not be much by way of company, Win, but I'm here." 

_"James?"_ Q called, and James heavily took a seat, relieved. _"I see you've met Win. Sorry for not warning you."_

"As it turned out, I didn't need one. No bulletholes on your precious Idiot, Q, and he wasn't even wearing a balloon." 

_"I was more concerned about his tendency to sneak up on people while otherwise engaged. That may have earned him a bullet. Though, more likely, a fling out of whatever nearby window."_

"You sound...off, Quartermaster." 

_"Yes, well, I had a cold for part of the voice programming, please forgive me."_ Q replied tetchily. 

James let it go, looking around and imagining what Q, sick, would look like. "Does Win make you tea when you're sick?" 

Q barked a laugh, and even that sounded wrong, _"I'm good, Bond, but it's a vacuum cleaner. It doesn't have hands. Even I'm not that good."_

James shrugged, looking down at Win. "You probably could if you tried." James stopped then, his head coming up from regarding the vacuum cleaner bopping a blue balloon around playfully. He'd been talking as if Q were still alive, and that was not a good thing. "I met with M yesterday," he informed Q, clearing his throat, "you were right, there's something...something he's hiding, and not for good reason." 

_"Was Eve here?"_

"Yes. She followed me from MI6, we spent the night trading stories and looking at pictures." 

_"Well, at least_ someone _has gotten to have sex in my apartment."_

"No sex. Just booze, friendship, and grief." James assured him immediately, and then realized that he had to negate that assumption because Q had been forced to listen to him having sex, and he didn't want even a passing shadow of Q to think that James would use his death to have sex. James remembered the asset from the last mission trying to get him in bed before trying to shoot him, and he thought he might not have sex that wasn't necessary for a long time. 

_"Sounds like a party until you get the last bit there,"_ Q sighed, _"The program won't come on with anyone else in the house. And I'd rather you didn't tell Eve the program even exists."_

A muscle in James's jaw worked, but he nodded, "I can agree to that." 

_"You need to understand,"_ Q's voice sounded the same again, _"she will want to talk to me. To keep the program running for as long as she can. There's only so much this program can do: and it can't last forever."_

James felt a twinge in his chest that he wanted to make it last forever, too. "I'll fill you in on what Mallory's been up to since the last of the file was compiled, shall I?" _Since you died,_ was left unsaid. 

_"When is you next mission, Bond?"_

"To be entirely, blaringly honest, Q, I'm not sure I want there to be a next mission if it's not you making sure I get out of it. Your people may have been capable, but they are not up to snuff now." 

_"I've spoiled you, have I?"_ Q chuckled, _"You need to continue as you have done, James. If for no other reason than to make sure that you are not thrown into suspicion."_

James looked up to one of the cameras, "Was that what happened to you?" 

_"There's a good chance, yes."_


	4. No Blue Skies Seen Here

Eve was curled in Q's office, still sealed as Q's until the new Q worked through his R&D projects, through to getting into the office. 

On the largest monitor, James could make out a crowd of people dancing under fairy lights, and in the centre, there was Q and Eve, her head thrown back in laughter as he swirled and twirled them. He'd donned a white button-up, a waistcoat, and light grey trousers, her dress white but luminescent in a way that reminded James of butterflies. 

"He came to an ex's wedding with me, as a favour. I had more fun with him," on screen, Q dipped her, his grin more devilish than James could believe, "than I have had with anyone in years." 

"You got him out of a cardigan?" 

She snorted, "He only wears those because it's kept so bloody cold down here. He's had circulation problems since he was small; it's either his fingers go numb, or he wears a jumper." 

"In that case, I may have bought him a merino wool. Bloody useful, those." 

Eve tugged on his shirtsleeve until he sat heavily beside her, watching as Q whispered something in her ear that made a dangerous twinkle play in her eye. "He took me out dancing for real after we left the reception. That boy was full of surprises. Got him out of his shell, and he was bloody dangerous: he nearly took a man's arm off for going for a grope of his arse, and Q just laughed it off. He was bursting with confidence, and it was all bluster, but, really, the boy was mouthwatering that night." 

James was sorely tempted to ask Eve about Mallory; but he knew better than anyone that it was entirely possible she was blindly loyal to the man, she was his second in command, really. This was something that he had to do with no one at his back but a computer program. Idly, he wondered if Win could be outfitted with weapons--and, for that matter, if he already had been. He wouldn't have put it past Q to turn the affectionate little thing into a security drone with lethal abilities if the premises were breached by anyone not sanctioned to be there. 

"Mallory will be sending you to Spain soon." 

James looked over at her fast enough Q would've laughed at him for trying to give himself whiplash. 

"None of the boffins are good enough to be your handler; you need Q. He knows it, but he doesn't care. I tried to get it to another agent, but he'd've caught me." 

"Why...?"

Eve looked at him, "Because you're figuring out the pieces of Q: the things you need to find. I hate coming in here every day because it peels me away from this," she nodded to the screen, "from figuring him out: how he managed to pull me in, and why it hurts so bloody much that he's gone, when I've known men and women for years who've died, and I barely mourned." 

"You managed to shoot me without blinking." James agreed. Eve closed her eyes, shaking her head before shooting him a look. 

"Yes, but that's _you_. I can think of several hundred women who would think you deserved it." 

James laughed softly, "I'm retroactively falling in love with a dead man, Eve. I think I've received my lumps." 

Eve whipped her head to him, looking startled, "You love him?" 

"What the hell else would I do? I've been drowning myself in him for the last three days, Eve, there's no way not to fall in love with him." 

"Maybe it's the best for you to get out for a while, then. Clear your head. Stop drowning." 

"Not bloody likely. My new handler will get me killed." 

"I think it's time that I make sure the boffins are adjusting well..." James turned his head at the offer, and Eve smiled, "I can be down here the whole time." 

"Now you're playing favourites, Ms. Moneypenny." 

"Hardly, Mr. Bond, just making sure someone a friend went to great lengths to keep alive actually manages." 

Three days later, with no ammunition, a malfunctioning miniature explosive, and his knife buried in the soft underside of a man's jaw, James was swearing in every language he knew as static blurted out random-seeming words between electric shocks. 

"I don't copy, the earpiece has been damaged--" Bond cut off, swearing blindly as he tore the tech out of his ear and smashed it beneath his boot, hissing as he brought his hand up to his ear. "Well, Q, I hope you saved me a drink in hell, darling." 

James grabbed the only thing remotely weapon-like near him--a fire extinguisher, and tossed it towards the rain of bullets, giving a bloodied smile as it was pierced, exploding spectacularly and blacking out any chance of getting sighted. 

James sighed, gathering himself, and shook his head, "Into the belly of the beast, and out the demon's ass." 

Two more days, an illegally obtained flight to Heathrow, and scaring a cabbie into complete silence just from a glance found him nearly falling to the floor as he bust into the workshop, his head spinning and bile pulling at the back of his throat. 

_"JAMES!"_ Damn, but it was good to hear that voice. James had only gotten through with the imagining of it, but hearing it was so much better, _"James, don't you bloody pass out on me. I can't even help you--I don't have hands! James, you needed to get to Medical. Your temperature is reading a dangerous level of infection and your pulse is thready, dammit! James, you bloody well stay conscious, or I'll come back simply to kill you."_

James smiled blearily, "You should come back..." he breathed, because he really wasn't up for much else, "I miss you." 

_"Twenty more minutes, James. Just keep conscious, will you? Keep conscious for me. Tell me...tell me about the story you started telling me in Belarus. The twelve-year-old girl..."_

"She shot a bullet out of the air...Pure luck." He laughed, but it turned into more of a choke, the taste of copper and salt overwhelming, "Flicked the gun apart like she was born to it, too. Swore on some boy band that she'd never pick up another." 

_"Sounds like a future member of Double-oh division."_

"Not on my life. She didn't want to ever look at another gun again. I wouldn't let them try." 

_"You're a good man, James. The best I've ever met, I daresay. Eve is coming. Sitrep, Bond."_

"I may still have glass shards in my back...I stitched up the worst of it, a rebar through the shoulder, but, as you say, infection. My boot is also the only thing holding my ankle in any semblance of place." 

_"Compound fracture?"_

"Of course." James groaned, and Q snorted softly. James could almost see him shaking his head. "You should come back...I'll take your place. It'll be fair then." 

_"No, it wouldn't, James."_

"Eve told me..." things were starting to blur, so he closed his eyes, concentrating on talking to the dead man, "she told me that you thought I was a...good man. I'm not, Q. I haven't been a good man since I started in the army." 

_"We're not going to compare the blood on our hands, James, because you will find mine too drenched to believe. Eve's coming up the walk, stay with me: I bloody well know you're a stubborn enough bastard to do it."_

James laughed, more of a wheeze, but it was the thought that counted, "I would've loved..." He faded for now, knowing that he'd be brought back, because resurrection was what he was best at, if not killing. 

There was no dull beep of instruments, though he was surprisingly pain-free. He smelt a rich, soft vanilla that had pervaded Q's rooms, and he felt like the bed beneath him might just have been a cloud. 

"If I've died--" 

"You haven't died, you prat." Eve snapped. James opened his eyes hazily, and realized she had put him in Q's bed. "You're bloody lucky that Q made me sign up for medical training courses. I had to perform an emergency surgery on your back, and I may have thrown up at all the puss in that shoulder wound, had it not been for the fact that Q got us both Eucalyptus-scented face masks. Win has been trying to get the blood out of the cement downstairs for two days." 

"I've only been out two days. Is Q still here?" 

Eve's features crumpled, "James..." her voice had changed, softened, and James's sluggish brain realized that whatever Q had done to call her to his rescue, he hadn't let hint out that the program existed, "the medication may have you totally banjaxed right now, love. Maybe try to go back to sleep. I'll still be here." 

James grunted, wanting nothing more than to hear Q, but his eyes closed of their own, obedient accord, and when fingers pushed through his hair, James made himself imagine they were the long, thin digits of MI6's Quartermaster. 

With a last thought of how badly he'd fallen, James was gone once again. 

Eve turned to the bot waiting patiently by the door, shaking her head softly, "He's asleep again, Win. Next time he wakes, maybe he'll stay awake long enough for you to take a look at him, assure yourself he's whole." Win made a high whine, followed by a squeak, the little puck turning one-eighty and whizzing out of the room. Eve sighed, knowing that she needed to figure out a way to explain to Win that Bond was a self-destructive idiot who would get himself bloodied at the first chance available. 

Eve wrapped her fingers around James's wrist, taking his pulse. The sensors in Q's security system could pick up his pulse, and reported it to her every half-hour, and had alerted her to any fluctuation. 

Finding Bond in a puddle of his own blood had been horrible, and patching him up had been next to impossible. She still doesn't know and won't too deeply question how she'd managed to get him up the stairs. She looked at the glittering, bloody bowl of glass that she'd pulled from Bond's back and suppressed panic, thankful once again that the sheets Bond was laying on were black. Q had kept a fully-loaded MI6-issue medical supply, and Eve made plans to raid Medical of more painkillers once Bond woke and could stay awake. It wasn't that she didn't trust Win to watch over his unconscious excuse for a carcass, it was more that if anything happened before he was coherent, she wanted to be the one to deal with the blow. 

Eve stood up from her perch on the edge of the bed, walking on silent steps to Q's wardrobe, her hands finding the worn fabric of his most-worn shirts; sifting deeper and lingering on the cashmere sweater she'd given him for Christmas, her hand going up to the small necklace he'd given her. 

"I miss you, boffin." She whispered, pulling out a hoodie that Q had once called the armour he'd worn in the old days, and Eve ached to have known those stories from his lips, not the files hidden deep in M's office. 

Files pertaining to a young hacker who'd lost his family before he'd known them; a heroin baby that had every earmark of a life that wasn't meant to be survived. 

Living rough at fifteen, stopping a rape in the Tube with a smart mouth and a stubbornness that withstood broken bones, putting himself through school by sheer force of will and being tagged by MI6 by seventeen, tapped because he was fearless in storming the many Bastilles that he'd cracked through the walls of. That hoodie he'd kept, he'd told her, because it was the strongest article of clothing he'd ever had. 

With the fabric in her hands, she turned back to Bond on the bed, and smiled to herself, shaking her head at the thoughts that sprang up; that Q had fallen in love with the human answer to this very piece of clothing. Worn on the edges, blood washed clean of the fibers, but still soft enough to comfort, and strong enough to withstand anything else Q needed of it. It had been too many times now, that Eve had found herself ready to cry for the brilliant man they'd lost, but there she was, clutching the ragged remains of Q's past while she stared at the ragged remains of what might've been his future, in another, kinder life. 


	5. Lose My Breath

James grit his teeth, the stubborn fire in him undaunted despite the pain radiating from his ankle. 

He'd only just gotten out of Medical--against recommendations, but he was out of the proverbial woods and patched up properly, though Moneypenny had done a damn good job--and facing down the stairs that would bring him into the inner sanctum of Q's life. 

The physical therapists would ream him a new one, but James didn't keep a bull pup about what they did or said about overexertion: let him fall to pieces now, so disgracefully left to do just that by his agency. What did he care if he never recovered. 

_"James, so help me, if you try those stairs--"_

James smiled, tipping his head back to look at the camera, "You can't threaten me very well, Quartermaster. Besides, it's not like I'm bloody well going to my flat. Eve will have gotten rid of it already." 

_"...Pardon?"_

"I live here now, Q. Win needs someone, and it's not like anyone even remembers where I lived anymore, it's been sold so many bloody times, so no one will be the wiser for suddenly not knowing where I live." 

_"James...that's--I can't ask that of you."_

"You don't have to." He replied with a smile. "We never got a chance...to become friends. I wish we had, Q." 

_"As do I, James,"_ Q's voice was strained, as if by emotion. James knew the sentiment, so much more earnest for him now, _"stay where you are. Win is coming to you."_

James's forehead wrinkled, wondering what the hell the vacuum could do for him. 

With a soft, whooshing sound, Win lowered itself down the side of the balcony at the top, and it felt, for a surreal moment, like those flying saucers had become a reality. _"He's reinforced, Bond. He can take your weight. And you don't even have the issues with heights that I am such a victim to."_

"You've got to be fucking with me." 

_"Not in the slightest."_ The posh voice answered, amused. Win lowered the hover down to a level at which it had calculated would be easiest for James to sit. _"Get on the Rhoomba, Bond."_

James shot a look up to the camera again, face a mask of stoicism, "I'm debating whether or not this is the most absurd thing you've suggested I do."

 _"Well, I did once tell Moneypenny that if you ever got through a mission without shagging someone, I'd eat her least favourite of my hats, but that wasn't a suggestion so much as a challenge."_ Bond smirked at the memory of that, shaking his head. 

"So you did mean to leave the comms open." 

_"James, don't for a moment think that there is much that I do accidentally. Save dying, I can't think of anything off the top of my head."_

Shaking his head again, James sat on the hovering vacuum cleaner, getting balanced for a moment before Win chirped. 

_"He's ready when you are."_ Q translated. 

James took several deep breaths, closing his eyes for a moment and swallowing down his nerves, "Alright...go." 

James kept his eyes fixed on the sculpture as the robot slowly began to rise, his heart bottoming out at the strangeness of this particular sensation of flight. 

There was something about the twisted metal that pulled at Bond, and as he rose up to just above the balcony, he realized, with squinted eyes, what that was. 

Q had recreated, in sculpture, the scene of the very painting they'd met before; the bloody big ship tossed on high seas, its tugboat executioner in a calmer circle, as if immune to the storm. James's breath caught, finding the intricacies and marveling at them. Q's talent shook him, something he may never have pegged for the boffin. 

Rising over the balcony high enough that Bond's shoes wouldn't so much as brush the wall, Win began to slowly ease into a descent until James's shoes were returned to the floor. Taking a shaky breath, James reached out with one hand to steady himself as he stood up, getting his crutches under him. "Well, that wasn't as bad as I might've anticipated." 

Q let out a bark of a laugh again, _"I will admit, he was built for someone of my weight, but I'm glad that didn't end badly."_

James paused, shooting a look at the ceiling. His eyes narrowed with the thought that he'd become accustomed to looking to the ceiling now, and had to assume that it would prove to be a difficult habit to break. 

_"You're in luck that I favour my leisure clothes on the too-large end of the spectrum, 007. Take your pick, and consider yourself banished from work until the pain meds are no longer necessary. And you_ will _be taking your pain medication, Bond, or so help me, I'll send an electrical short to the toilet."_

James laughed softly, taking the paper bag of his prescription out of his pocket and setting it on the bar as he passed, "Moneypenny has promised to bring some things for me--" 

_"Bond, it's not like I'm wearing my clothes anymore. If you're serious about taking the apartment, consider all of it yours."_

Pausing, James took a deep breath before opening the door to Q's bedroom--what would always be Q's bedroom, he supposed. 

Eve had stripped the bed once he'd been moved to Medical, and the only other thing out of place was a pile of fabric thrown over the chair across the room from the bed. James crossed to it first, wondering if Eve had left it. He knew immediately it wasn't hers. The fabric had seen years of service; it'd once been soft, then worn into roughness, now soft again. James had the sense that it'd most likely seen more than its fair share. He set it back down, keeping it aside so that he could ask. 

He managed with a few pained grunts, muttering angrily to Win about aging as he struggled out of the suit Eve had brought him in Medical and into an oversized t-shirt and pair of sweatpants, easing his cast into the leg. He snagged the worn cotton hoodie, but hesitated to walk out of the room with it bunched in his hand. He threw it over his shoulder, keeping it balanced as much as he could. 

Q didn't speak up again, and James sighed, assuming that one of the limitations of the program was that he couldn't keep it running for long without the input of the necessary information. He sat in the living room, smirking as a panel in the wall lifted, revealing a state-of-the-art entertainment system. 

"Play me the last thing you watched?" James requested, sighing as he made himself comfortable on the couch, propping his leg up on a pillow before pulling a quilt from over the back of the couch. 

The screen flickered to life, and James found himself burrowing into the cushions, egregiously comfortable as he hugged the hoodie to his chest, watching as _The Mummy_ began to play. 

He woke up several hours later to a soft beeping noise, Win nudging his arm with the bag of meds balanced on his top. "How...no, I'm not going to ask that, I definitely don't want to know the answer." 

James grunted as he sat up, taking the bag and tearing it open around the staple. He dry-swallowed his pills, wincing at the hunger gnarled in his stomach. Heaving himself to his feet, James forewent the crutches, half-dragging his cast-encased leg forward with him as he went for the kitchen, trying to remember if he'd remembered to restock the supply of frozen lasagna before he'd left. 

Win let out a soft tone, still hovering as he zoomed into the office. James sighed, wondering what could be so important. 

His phone went off, but he wasn't fast enough to get to it without his crutches. A strange tone came over the speakers, and James huffed a short laugh when the familiar sounds of a call coming through butted into the system. 

_"James,"_ Eve sounded nearly desperate, and James straightened immediately, ready to do whatever was needed of him, _"there's been an explosion at a suspected arms manufacturing plant...James, I haven't seen anything like it since Q--"_

"Eve, take a deep breath." James ordered automatically, dragging himself towards the office, the hunch curling in his gut. He got past Win, opening the laptop with as much care as he could muster for his haste. "Bloody password..." 

Win let out a series of beeps to call his attention, then a blast of song came out of the hockey puck, and James took the lyrics sprouted to him, simply hoping. The computer unlocked, and James clicked on the file with his name on it, dragging up the plans for the chip Q had had embedded in his left foot. 

"Did he...?" 

"THAT WAS A PROTOTYPE!" Win sprouted, and James's heart turned nastily, a hope he didn't want to feel curling in his gut. 

"Eve...I think he might not be dead." James whispered. 

Eve paused, her voice coming out shaky, but wrathful enough to make even James a little relieved to be on her side, _"Find him. Bring him home."_

"He was investigating--" 

_"Our great and terrible leader? Colour me unsurprised. I'll take care of him; you find our Quartermaster. If he blew that plant--"_

"It's only a matter of time before they kill him for real."

 _"Or worse."_ Eve agreed. 

James felt hope curdle in his stomach, a rage bursting out under his skin as he threw himself out of the office, catching up his crutches and shrugging on the hoodie he'd forgotten he'd even been holding, just for the layer of warmth it could provide. 

The laptop had two lit points on the map the program had opened. One was Bond. 

James knew the other would be Q. 

The likelihood of shooting a bullet out of the air wasn't even worth calculation. But James, upon breaking into the underground, long-forgotten bunker he'd followed Q's tracking device to, shot the bullet that would've killed Q out of the air. 

The gun was technically illegal, but it didn't matter. James had it and himself, and nothing else going for him. His crutches proved to be fantastic blunt instruments, and Q was fearless, vicious, and blazingly angry as James fought and shot his way towards getting the battered and abused boffin to safety. 

With the bastard who would have pulled the trigger on his knees, James raised the muzzle at his head before Q's dislocated, bleeding, and broken hand wrapped around his wrist, "Don't." Was all he could manage to get out, swaying on his feet, so thin from starvation and so beaten from torture James could only imagine getting vengence for that he could barely keep his eyes open. 

James wrapped around him, the gun in one hand and the one crutch he'd kept useless under his arm as he held Q against his own battered body, relief trying to take his legs out from under him as Q clung to the fabric of the hoodie his knight in shining armour had donned to save him. 

"He needs to confess. And implicate the bastard who hired him to boot." Q told him, voice still the soft, calm tones James needed in order to survive. 

James tipped Q's head back and kissed him, leaning their foreheads together, "I'm going to burn MI6 to the ground for you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As much as I really don't want to finish this, it's rather impossibly close to being done.


	6. Sleep Among the Stars

James Bond was dressed in an impeccable suit, the bruises of the fight before fading to green and yellow, a cane supporting him rather than the crutches. 

Eve Moneypenny was waiting for him, her suit just as impeccable as his, white and red against his black and blue. They strode into MI6 together, Eve carried by a fire that had men's voices dying in their throats, and James a detached avenging angel, his blue eyes utterly cold and his features set. 

Tanner stared as Bond held the door for Moneypenny into the outer offices, the woman surpassing her desk to wait beside the door to M's office, gaze gone dispassionate as she waited for Bond to stand before her, the two of them not even bothering to regard each other. 

"Mr. Tanner," Bond said, voice soft and more dangerous than anyone had survived hearing, "you may want to head-off the chaos that is about to erupt in Q-Branch." 

With that, Eve opened M's door, and James strode through. 

Quite wisely, Tanner ran to do as suggested. 

"What is the meaning of this?" M demanded, and James simply pulled out a chair for Eve, seating himself before reaching over the desk and hanging up the call M had been in the middle of. 

"This...is your arrest, Gareth Mallory." James replied eloquently, every syllable perfectly annunciated. 

"What--"

"It was recently discovered, sir, that Bastian Gabriel Kelly, former Quartermaster of MI6 was kidnapped last month in order to cover up the investigation which he was privately running on the recent spike in government-grade tech traded to hostiles. I understand that he was not thrilled to find that men his were sent to kill had had the same weapons he'd sent his agents out with." James told him evenly, and the reassuring snick of the lock on the secure door could be clearly heard through the pause. 

"Mr. Kelly was kidnapped and apparently killed by your orders." Eve continued. 

"He was found, alive, two days ago." James added, sitting back, "And his captors confessed to being paid off by accounts leading back to you." 

"Under normal circumstances, sir, I'd suggest you beg for your life." Eve sighed casually. 

"But, alas, I have friends in rather high places," James murmured, "and they intend to see you brought to justice in their own methods." 

"Especially since Q is the man who's finally toppled James Bond." 

"And since I personally know the Queen." James agreed. 

The look of horror on M's face, James felt, would have made Q feel every day he'd spent withstanding torture was worth it. 

"How...the bloody hell--" M was turning rather maroon, much to James and Eve's amusement. 

"Q had a tracking device prototype embedded in his left arm." 

"Which he cut out himself, after lifting one of the men's flip phones, saving a piece of duct tape, and retrieving a paperclip kept buried in his shoe for just such an occasion."

Eve smiled slightly, "He hacked into his own security system, and guided Bond through the investigation." 

"Then, because he felt he wasn't able to withstand much more, even with the pleasure of my unknowing company, he blew up the plant at which you were having the weapons he designed manufactured for foreign powers." 

"Tipped me off." Eve murmured.

"And gave me reason to dig, because there is no one quite like Bastian to have pulled this off." 

"You-You can't arrest me, I'm--" 

"An old man." Q's voice sighed from Mallory's own phone. "Who got careless and sloppy and is now going to have to pay the price." 

Gareth Mallory and the Quartermaster that had replaced Q--the leak from Q's people--were led out of the building in handcuffs, and James parted ways with Eve after a kiss to the cheek and a bid to make sure Q didn't come in for a few weeks. 

James went home, brushing a hand over the tugboat on his way up the stairs, a tense part of him only relaxing when James reached the top to the sight of Q bickering idly with Win over whether or not he was allowed from the bed to the couch. 

Q cut off, looking over to Bond and smiling brighter than anything Bond had ever seen. "Good work, James." 

Ignoring that, James swept over to Q, kneeling on the floor in front of the couch to kiss him, tucking one arm behind his back and sweeping one hand over the bruised jaw and into Q's mess of hair. He was careful of the split in his lip and the black eye making his glasses an uncomfortable addition. James had held Q in his bed for the last two days, feeling like, for once, he was just as protected by the body beside him as he was being protected. 

Q had pulled his aching fingers through Bond's hair, quietly admitting that he hadn't intended to survive, but he was glad to have. 

Q told him that he'd wanted to blow up in order to cut them off from seeking out any more information that could end agents' lives, but he'd been denied that chance; they'd torn out his earpiece and the smart bomb that had dropped on a warehouse he wasn't in, no matter what the GPS said. 

James stared into his face when they broke apart, studying everything he could. Q had suffered, and he hadn't let James think it for a moment, simply giving James every bit of help he could, trying to keep him safe. Catching Q's hand, James pressed a kiss to his palm, his larger, blunter hands framing Q's bandaged fingers, wishing he could heal him with sheer force of will. Q hummed, slipping his other hand under James's jaw to make him meet Q's gaze. 

The genius smiled, and James felt like he was seeing the sun after months. "Watch a movie with me?" 

"Of course." James breathed, kissing his cheek. "I'll get changed out of a suit, hm?" 

Q grinned, "Thai or Indian?" 

"You're not supposed to put anything too spicy on your stomach, Q." James scolded, standing with a muffled grunt and hobbling out of the room. 

"I won't get anything too spicy, James." Q promised. 

James slid into the hoodie, feeling Q's past settle around him, making them both stronger. Q had told him that this was the hoodie that had seen him sic twenty transvestites on a would-be rapist; he'd met the woman who would always be their M in this hoodie; he'd destroyed his own life in this hoodie, and made himself a ghost. Q's past didn't matter save that he'd managed to survive. 

Q reached towards him, uncurling enough so that James could sit against him with all the care in the world not to hurt him. Q pressed a kiss to his forehead, smiling slightly, "Are you okay?" 

James didn't reply, tucking himself around Q with a tenderness he never would have thought himself capable of. Q looked up at him, the newness of having his feelings returned colouring his cheeks. James barely let his mouth brush Q's skin as he slowly, methodically, began to kiss every bruise and scrape. "I will always get to you, Q." 

Q's breath caught, and he pulled James's lips to his own, "I never want you to sacrifice yourself for me." He whispered. "But I never doubted you would." 

James nodded in agreement, kissing at Q's fingers. "I would have gotten you out of there," James breathed, "if you'd--" 

"James." Q cut him off, pulling his attention up so that he could stare into the unbelievably blue eyes of the double-oh. "I didn't know where I was, or if they would keep me alive from one minute to the next. I wasn't breaking, and I was rapidly becoming more of a liability than an asset. Telling you I was alive would have been reckless and selfish, and it might've gotten you killed." 

When they went to bed that night, Q unzipped the hoodie, laying his head against James's bare chest with a sigh. James had learned that Q was a sensual kind of person, and he was more than okay with baring his skin to let Q get his fill of touching it. "To anyone else, we'd be moving way too fast." 

"You mean because you live with me, and we only admitted non-platonic feelings for each other two days ago?" 

James snorted, "Yes, pup, that is precisely what I mean." James reached and played with Q's hair. 

"You know just as well as I do, if not better, that taking what we can while we can is the only way people who live in the world we do can survive. It's not too fast for me. I'll savour every moment, but I refuse to waste time waiting for them when I can have them come now." 

James pressed his palm between Q's shoulder blades with a soft kind of strength, and Q hummed, wrapping his arm around Bond's waist and hugging back. "I've a gift for resurrection, Q. And you're too stubborn to die." 

Q raised himself up, smiling just a little before pressing a kiss to James's lips, "We have all the time in the world."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might be amenable to a sequel, let me know in comments if there's any interest.


End file.
